


Theia

by Lycoria



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Is he or isn't he?, It's okay don't worry I won't leave any of you hanging, M/M, We might not ever know, cw: suicidal thoughts, way too much of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 05:12:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13357230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycoria/pseuds/Lycoria
Summary: Before, he knew what he had to do. It was as if he had become less of a man than he once was.Or maybe, he was simply a sham.He seeks Keith out, not knowing what he will find.(Sheith angst, hurt/comfort)





	Theia

_**Black Hole** _

  
It took him a little bit to realize, to be honest.

But when he did, he knew.

He knew from the struggle of it. Nights laid awake trying to remember the most mundane things. Like the flavor of his favorite drink, cold in a tall glass after a long day at the garrison. How it felt to lay under warm midday sunlight. Laughter blaring from his favorite sitcom. The joy of traveling through the stars.

He also struggled to remember what was mundane and what was important.

Voltron, for one. The Universe, for the other.

He found that things available and most immediate were easier to recall. Guiding the paladins. Hand to hand combat, and the sink of his metal arm as it slotted neatly into an enemy’s chest. The regret.

But eventually, all of that fell away to static. The picture was unreadable, and he would squint blearily through the snow. The harder he tried to recall something, the more likely it would crumble and disintegrate, deformed like an overly ripe apple, bruised under his fingers.

The apple held forbidden knowledge, and he longed to take a bite. He remembered that, at least.

Everything eventually turned to dust, and so did his confidence in the idea of “memory.”

_No, it's not actually just a mere idea._

He corrected himself

_Well, it is now._

Day by day he felt the thoughts slip out of him and into the ether. His desperation in holding it all together no more successful than water through fingers.

What remained when all had turned to sand through his fingers felt distant. A cold, hard pebble that reminded of who he was sitting under the ball of his foot.

His brain felt as holey as Swiss cheese.

Nothing was real.

 

* * *

 

  
_**Doppler Shift** _

 

Lately to Keith, his smile was like the crescent of a waning moon. A brief shimmer of an outline against a black backdrop, the clouds veiling the possibility of divination.   
  
It made him uneasy, if he was honest to himself.

The smallest of things seemed to fall through the cracks, ones he used to think would never be left behind. Words he spoke seemed to fall on flat ears. And sometimes, words from him that Keith thought would never do less than inspire, fell even flatter on his own.

If he dared to reveal his truest thoughts, Keith feared that all he would ever hear in return was an empty echo. Reverberation of his pathetic vulnerabilities, ones that no one could afford in the war they now fought.

In the end, maybe he was the one that was going crazy.   
  
He gripped his pillow in his fists as he lay awake, as if he could grasp his hands hard enough around the pieces of his fragmented thoughts, hold them together.   
  
_Maybe there’s nothing wrong but me_.

He grinned to himself in the dark sardonically, realizing the foolhardiness of his own words.

Keith knew he would rather blame himself than him. Anything else but him.

It boiled down to a refusal to accept the change in someone else, even though change had been at this point a constant in Keith’s life. Denial of what was plainly in front of him, a contradiction of his very being so grave he ground his teeth into it.

Keith prided himself in being able to pick himself up after each and every fall, the false promises and the sudden absences.

He didn’t know he was this weak.

Only in anything else but him.

He closed his eyes, knowing that he was wasting time, turning over pages and pages of his thoughts, a feedback loop that threatened to snap under his own prodding.

He was spinning out.

 

* * *

 

  
**_Gravitational Collapse_ **

He felt pulled taut under his own skin, like there was a constant phantom itch that encouraged him to scream until he burst. The shell he had donned would finally splinter, and they would all see him for who he was.

He would be able to see himself for who he was.

Instead the days stretched on, endless repetition. Words of encouragement and consolation for the paladins. Lead them into the war. Keep them from dying their smallest, insignificant deaths in an uncaring universe.

The one in blue. What was his name again?

In these moments, when he found himself asking questions he would have never have believed he had to ask, when his fingers shook and the exhaustion took even his own name from him, he turned his eyes to a sole redemption.

A fire, red like the blood that ran through his veins.

He had suspected before that there was something that meant more to him about Keith than he would ever admit. Even still, before he was content to leave those emotions behind. They were a simple mistake of chemicals, the feeling of seeing something familiar under constant and undue stress. He recited his textbooks on psychology, even as his gaze could never tear away from Keith’s face. Willed his impulses to deteriorate.

Willed them to die, so that the universe could live.

But this was different, now. Somehow. Now he looked to Keith, the single evidence of his past, the reality of who he was before. He was afraid to touch, but he could not stop the urge to devour. The safety was off, trigger under his index finger.

Before, he knew what he had to do. It was as if he had become less of a man than he once was.

Or maybe, he was simply a sham.

An existence that was once held apart, held separate, he now ached to take apart with his own hands. The one he held dear, and the righteous fury of the cosmos under his eyelids would mete out his judgement, and so he would burn until he was nothing but the hollow inside his chest.

Another sleepless night, and another cold sliver of fear embedded itself into him. He would break, and he would seek him out.

 

* * *

  
_**Cataclysmic Impact** _

 

Delirium, it had to be. Insanity, because there in front of him, instead of disgust, Keith had pulled off his shirt, grasped his arms into a bruising embrace, teeth on his lips and tongue against his.

Acceptance was not expected, not what he wanted.

But they fell into each other, frantic and sharp, his hands roaming, only earning appreciation and praises in the sounds Keith made at the back of his throat.

He wanted refusal, he wanted a coldness that singularized him into only his edges, he wanted proof that he was no longer who he thought he was.

But he didn’t know what he wanted, because he couldn’t imagine wanting anything else more than this, the push and pull of them together. He was both the sea in the midst of storm and the shipwreck on the waters, begging to drown.

Keith pulled him closer, as if trying to bring him so tightly against his skin, the two of them bonded, celestial bodies becoming one in the aftermath of impact. It was a violent, spiraling attempt to grind their very bones together, a useless desire to move with the body above him until they were nothing but dust and ash.

They were two planets hurtling towards each other, a death’s dance aiming for collision, meeting unfated, destinies unfulfilled. Keith wanted it so hard he felt himself choke on it, his lungs caving in from the frantic need to destroy himself under the weight of words unspoken. With every motion he felt his soul escape from his mouth, in gasps and shuddering sighs.

He, in turn, longed for the moment in which Keith crawled inside, split him down the seams by the spine, vertebrae neatly unfolding under his exalted touch. There inside he knew that Keith would discover a neutron star, sitting heavy and empty from supernovas of emotion it could no longer bear. A long overdue end, finally revealed through the watchful eyes of violet galaxy below.

His teeth found the juncture between the neck and the collarbone, found purchase there and sank, forbidden fruit finally in his hands, bright desperation in the small hope that if he were to mark him, he would never be forgotten. Keith would remember who he was for him, even when he could not.

And so he collapsed, a dying star burning brighter and hotter than before, the blood churning under his skin as he felt Keith’s nails, hairline fractures all along his shoulders. He was cracking under the pressure, and he sought it out with a single minded force, hips twisting.

Gracelessly they collided, and for a moment, the peak they found themselves at rendered them into inexistence, the end of a universe, only for the birth of one new.

But there again was the static darkness, creeping in at the edges of his mind. Not yet, he prayed, silently.

_Don’t let me forget once again._

Because even if the memories were not his, he clung hopelessly to them.

“...iro?”

Fuzzy, the quality poor, like a record player threatening to break.

“Shiro?”

Clearer now, a name that had felt foreign to his ears for so long.

He turned his head, gazed into the face of salvation, marveled once again that he took pity on someone like him, to call him with a name that wasn’t rightfully his.

“Keith.” In his mouth, a name he didn’t deserve to speak. “Keith I… I don’t think, I don’t know…”

He stopped, at the crest of revelation that would cut him in two.

“I don’t think I’m-”

“Does it matter?” Keith answered, plucking the words from the air before they formed. “Shiro, does it really matter?”

Keith pulled in close, sweat slicked foreheads touching, one hand lacing into his, another resting on his chest, finding the pulse he thought long gone.

“Shiro.”

“Again.” He asked, pleaded.

“Shiro.”

They folded against each other, Keith a bright star after the darkest night, murmuring a name once dead.

His skin no longer itched, the pieces falling into place.

Shiro fell asleep, at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a weird and long fever dream. 
> 
> The first part, Black Hole, was just a short that I wrote and posted on twitter in response to the ending of season 3. There was always meant to be more to it, but I couldn't quite grasp the ending until now. Two parts turned into three, then four, then became its own fic.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I know this is a little different from my usual stuff, so I can't help but feel a little bit vulnerable (nervous laughter). 
> 
> Either way, Sheith is so beautiful you guys.


End file.
